Weird household rules you had growing up.

[habibihabibi]

A number of odd rules but most memorable:
My mother did not allow us to sit ot lie on beds unless in our pj's ready to sleep.
Not allowed in bedrooms during the day unless poorly.
If we had friends over we had to play in the garden/playroom.
We were not permitted downstairs in pjs ever.
Straight from bath to bed and immediately washed and dressed on waking.

Hit me with your strange rules

We weren’t allowed to open presents on Christmas Day, we had to wait until Boxing Day to open them

@lookatgiraffenow are you my sister?

also
only allowed to wash hair twice a week (and not allowed to do it myself)
had to go to bed very early compared with peers
had to ask permission before eating or drinking anything

No pjs downstairs, no crossing on the stairs (still do this now), always had to have a light on overnight so it looked to the outside like someone was up (They were burgled once before we was born so I think that’s why) she still does this now & always a tv/radio on for background noise.. which I also still do now!

No tap shoes to be worn in the house. Most annoying when I was trying to practice for tap exams.

Never was there so much stark-raving lunacy than the time when certain people procreated.

Do not stand on the other side of her bed because 'that was where the fleas lived' (never vacuumed, ever).

Do not look out of any windows.

Curtains are not to be closed. They were bought to just measure the exact width of the window recess.

No drinks with meals. If you were choking, you had to wait one hour before having a drink. But never milk. Milk was EXPENSIVE. Fizzy pop from the SodaStream, however, was fine.

Do not close the bathroom door. Somebody might want to use the toilet. Even if you were on the toilet or in the bath at the time.

One bath/hairwash a week.

One washload a week. Any other clothes would have to be collected from the cardboard box on the bathroom floor and worn for the next three weeks. One pair of socks a week was all you were allowed.

Shoes on at all times other than when actually in bed or in the bath.

Knickers on at all times other than in the bath. It was not necessary to change them more than every 3 or 4 days.

The Big light must NEVER be switched on.

Do not EVER tell anybody ANYTHING about the house or ANYTHING that happens inside it.

Do not touch her stuff. Do not look at her stuff.

A new catalogue cannot be looked at until she has looked through it.

No salt. Salt is EVIL and is not allowed in the house.

No eating outside the house. Restaurants were strictly forbidden.

The dog does not go upstairs. Five cats could, complete with pee, poo, fleas, worms and ticks (which were called 'grass fleas'), but the dog must stay in the unheated kitchen.

The telephone was for DIRE EMERGENCIES and nobody was to phone you on any occasion, lest that meant she lost the BT Low User Discount. If you had to call 999 (happened once), you must adopt a Received Pronunciation accent.

Bring home any stray animals or wounded wildlife that you like, but on no account was anybody to knock for you.

No friends. No going out. No parties. They were all scum.

No creole earrings as they were worn by G*ppos but middleclass people all got their children's ears pierced at the age of five.

No fringes.

Only allowed to watch BBC children's TV
No sleepovers at our house
No pets upstairs
The hot water for baths was only allowed on at v specific times
The telephone was kept in the kitchen and attached to the wall

Only allowed two slices of bread for tea. Only allowed one spread on each slice (no cutting it in half and having peanut butter on one half and chocolate spread on the other). Unless it was a crust, then you were allowed to cut it in half once.

No food in bedrooms
No drinks in bedrooms
No pjs on except for bed
Everything must be tidied away or it goes in the bin(lost my homework a few times)
Nudity was a no-no even when young
No sweets or chocolate before 1pm
No radio on in the car

All pretty normal in our house.
No eating upstairs.
No going out after a bath.
No swallowing gum.
No messing about at the table.

@MitziK it sounds like you did not get a lot of privacy growing up what with the open curtains and bathroom door!

Nope, privacy was for adults that paid their own bills whose benefits paid the rent. Diaries were her property, as was your post - if it came through the door, it was her absolute right to open it. Your money was hers as well.

Bedroom doors had to be kept open as well, all day and all night. If you were getting dressed, you had to crouch on the floor in the dark to do it so 'men' didn't see you if they were walking down the next street and managed to look in between two houses, over a massive fence, two trees and, most challenging of all, through the dirt on the windows (windows were not for washing).

Some of the other highlights were;

Nothing green, red, black or striped was allowed in the house. Emeralds were particularly unlucky, but all jewellery with stones in was cursed. Jewellery, such as bracelets, rings or anything jingly, or scarves that weren't handknitted were worn by G*ppos (ignoring the small detail of wanting her 5 year old to have pierced ears, obviously). Lots of rules that, if broken, would mean people would think we were Gypsies, Travellers, Tinkers, Totters, or, worst of all, Irish/Catholics. So a complete erasure of her father's origins. Or her mother's Ashkenazi heritage. The claim of her colouring being due to imaginary holidays in the South of France was ridiculous - but the arsehole who made the wisecrack about which Irish village she stole the baby from (me - very pale, freckled, red hair, green eyes) got me confined indoors all summer in case more freckles appeared. Sunblock would have been easier, but that involved touching.

Oh yes, touching. Not allowed. No kisses above the age of 5, no cuddles, no show of emotion (other than her anger, obviously). To show either sadness or happiness at a funeral was a total humiliation. Affection just wasn't a thing 'We don't do that'. Eye contact wasn't approved of either - it was being insolent.

Last of all, never, ever duck to avoid being hit. Especially not whilst making full eye contact. It meant you got a punch in the side of the head or your feet stamped on at best, an attempt to shove you backwards down the stairs if you continued to dodge.

no wonder I was such a fucking shit Mum

Not allowed a drink after 6 at night incase we wet the bed.
Having to go upstairs when parents friends came round.
Having to wash the dishes after dinner every night.

We were only allowed half a small glass of orange juice, as it was expensive.

We weren’t allowed to talk at the dinner table .

Oh, and we weren’t allowed a bath for at least half an hour after eating!

The no eating food in the street was a pretty universal one - it was considered very bad manners by most people, except maybe in a seaside town or similar. . I remember feeling very daring going to a fish and chip shop after a school disco when I was about16 and eating chips out of paper. - it felt ok because it was dark . It actually wasn’t a difficult one to abide by as there just weren’t many other types of take away or cooked food that wasn’t served in a cafe, tea shop or restaurant. Still would not wander along eating.

All eating was at the table.
No food upstairs.
No TV dinners.

I think a lot of these rules were very much about adults asserting their authority over children, very know your place and no rational justification. Some are downright cruel and others are obviously just snobbery (and can still be seen on MN now )

To be fair though, some rules were simply of their time because certain things were just so much more expensive. They may seem odd now but they weren’t actually irrational.

Phone only after 6pm was obviously because it was cheaper then and there weren’t mobiles.
Asking for food - well, groceries were more expensive. I know in our house (5 dc) my parents were buying enough yogurts, crisps etc to see us through five school lunches. If someone just helped themselves then another child might have to go without. If we wanted toast on a random evening we had to check as there needed to be enough left to cover ours and my dads packed lunch.
Changing out of school uniform was usually because it cost a lot! Supermarkets selling cheap uniform is a relatively recent thing. I know our school jumpers cost my parents more than we pay for our dcs now and they were often bought a size or two bigger as they needed to last a couple of years given how expensive they were. We certainly didn’t have spares!
Even sharing bath water, I mean yes gross but I can tell you all that any Irish person over the age of 40 remembers the worst crime you could commit was forgetting to turn off the immersion !! It cost a lot to heat water for baths so it wasn’t that unusual to use the same bath for maybe two dc.

I must admit that in this house a child wouldn’t get two packets of crisps in one day and biscuits are given in two’s. I don’t think that’s particularly odd though.

Loads already mentioned, my childhood was weird and restrictive and I don't have particularly happy memories. By contrast, DS is pretty much rule free now I come to think of it and has so far managed not to burn the house down or end up in league with the devil.

One that I haven't seen mentioned yet was that magazine's must never be kept Having not managed to stop me seeing Just 17 and then later More as I bought them with my paper round money, they would need to be disposed of immediately. This is due (apparently!) to the presence of bugs that live in the cheap paper such literature is printed on.

Eat everything on your plate before you could leave the table
We did t have a TV until I was 12 but even then nearly all programmes were deemed’unsuitable’. Most comedians were ‘coarse’.
I had to go to bed ridiculously early until my teens
No new clothes. I wore my mothers hand me downs.
Definitely no wearing bedclothes downstairs . You got up and got dressed. No lying around in bed at weekends either.
No snacking between meals.

A lot of these were pretty normal 40 years ago, things my kids would find alarming! My daughter was aghast that phones calls had to be limited to circa 5 mins and the only phone was at the bottom of the stairs on a wire, she asked me how I had privacy .... what was that! She was also confused that my boyfriend who became my husband, split now, slept in my brothers room!

No school trips
No sleepovers at other people's houses
No food in bedrooms (actually I think that's reasonable now I have two teens who ignore it and never bring the plates down)
No phoning people who live locally because you can walk to their house
No calling for friends when it is raining because it's like inviting yourself to their house. You can't phone them because you could walk there.
Lunch time is always 1pm regardless.
DInner is always at 6pm. No leaving the table until you have eaten everything (though the adults can go to watch TV while you sit alone in the kitchen)
You have to allow guests to smoke in your home because it is showing that you respect them

Changing out of school uniform was usually because it cost a lot! Supermarkets selling cheap uniform is a relatively recent thing. I know our school jumpers cost my parents more than we pay for our dcs now and they were often bought a size or two bigger as they needed to last a couple of years given how expensive they were. We certainly didn’t have spares!

And not made out of fabrics that you could just bung in the wash and the dryer. Pleated skirts or gymslips that could be sponged if they were dirty but otherwise needed dry cleaning or summer dresses that you sewed at home that equally weren’t as resilient to frequent washing. Removable underarm dress shields guarded against the failings of the inadequate deodorants available then.

I used to come in and immediately have to hang up my uniform ready for the next day - fresh shirt every day that had to be ironed because no easy care, unless you count the truly nasty experiment with sweaty and see through BriNylon !